The Importance of a Periodic Financial Checkup
It’s one of the six steps of the financial planning process, but it’s the one step that gets most overlooked. It’s the sixth
step – monitoring and revising your plan.
Lives are seldom static and that’s why financial plans are not set-and-forget documents. What exactly should financial
planners and clients examine in their meetings and when should they conduct them?
Typically, financial planners will collect a client’s data, prioritize their goals, examine their resources, make
recommendations, and implement a plan as part of the financial planning process. In a review, the financial planner will
do much of the same and then some. They will first typically examine a client’s progress against the plan time frames.
This sort of monitoring benefits both planners and their clients. Clients get an opportunity to step back from their busy
lives and review their goals and confirm that their priorities remain the same Planners have a chance to reconnect with
their clients to affirm their positive actions towards goal achievement or to help refocus them so that they don’t get too
far off track.
In some cases, planners and clients will want to establish a regular appointment, like meeting on an annual basis, and in
some cases on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Typically, the planner and client will review in these meetings short-
term goals, examining what if anything may have changed. In some cases, a planner may suggest changes based on
certain life events. The birth of a child or grandchild may require a discussion about 529 plans. A divorce may require
changing beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
In addition a planner may want to review with their clients new research that has become available in the interim to
either confirm rationale or provide a basis to alter a client’s short-term or long-term strategies. For instance, new
research that shows the escalating costs of nursing homes or health care in retirement wouldn’t change the goal of
“secure long-term retirement,” but it might change the strategy to achieve that goal.
Besides reviewing family developments, planners would also address in a review regulatory and other changes that
could affect adversely or positively a client’s financial plan. In other cases, the review is a chance to review potential
changes, changes in the federal estate tax laws, for instance, and devise possible plans of actions.
In summary, reviews provide a chance for planners to examine a client’s long-term goals. These reviews can establish
whether the client is generally on course to meet their goals. It’s also a chance to review changes that have occurred
and begin to anticipate changes that may occur and it’s a chance to implement any new plan of action that has been
developed in light of changing goals or changing performance.
©2006-2011 Yardley Wealth Management, LLC. All rights reserved.
It’s one of the six steps of the financial planning process, but it’s the one step that gets most overlooked. It’s the sixth
step – monitoring and revising your plan.
Lives are seldom static and that’s why financial plans are not set-and-forget documents. What exactly should financial
planners and clients examine in their meetings and when should they conduct them?
Typically, financial planners will collect a client’s data, prioritize their goals, examine their resources, make
recommendations, and implement a plan as part of the financial planning process. In a review, the financial planner will
do much of the same and then some. They will first typically examine a client’s progress against the plan time frames.
This sort of monitoring benefits both planners and their clients. Clients get an opportunity to step back from their busy
lives and review their goals and confirm that their priorities remain the same Planners have a chance to reconnect with
their clients to affirm their positive actions towards goal achievement or to help refocus them so that they don’t get too
far off track.
In some cases, planners and clients will want to establish a regular appointment, like meeting on an annual basis, and in
some cases on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Typically, the planner and client will review in these meetings short-
term goals, examining what if anything may have changed. In some cases, a planner may suggest changes based on
certain life events. The birth of a child or grandchild may require a discussion about 529 plans. A divorce may require
changing beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
In addition a planner may want to review with their clients new research that has become available in the interim to
either confirm rationale or provide a basis to alter a client’s short-term or long-term strategies. For instance, new
research that shows the escalating costs of nursing homes or health care in retirement wouldn’t change the goal of
“secure long-term retirement,” but it might change the strategy to achieve that goal.
Besides reviewing family developments, planners would also address in a review regulatory and other changes that
could affect adversely or positively a client’s financial plan. In other cases, the review is a chance to review potential
changes, changes in the federal estate tax laws, for instance, and devise possible plans of actions.
In summary, reviews provide a chance for planners to examine a client’s long-term goals. These reviews can establish
whether the client is generally on course to meet their goals. It’s also a chance to review changes that have occurred
and begin to anticipate changes that may occur and it’s a chance to implement any new plan of action that has been
developed in light of changing goals or changing performance.
©2006-2011 Yardley Wealth Management, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Michael J. Garry, CFP®, JD/MBA, owner of Yardley Wealth Management, LLC,
is an independent Financial Advisor who provides Fee-Only financial planning
services and investment management in Newtown, PA.
is an independent Financial Advisor who provides Fee-Only financial planning
services and investment management in Newtown, PA.
| Address: 41 University Drive Suite 400, Newtown, PA 18940 Phone: 267-573-1019 Toll free: 877-251-4393 Fax: 267-604-9164 mgarry@yardleywealth.net |